Barney Sherman

Classical Music Host

Barney Sherman joined Iowa Public Radio member station KSUI in fall 2001 as Classical music host. In his role with Iowa Public Radio, Barney hosts weekday and Sunday afternoon Classical programs. He has written about music in books for Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and in articles for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, and many other publications. Another topic he has written about is Iowa, for The Atlantic (and for Iowa Public Radio!).

Ways to Connect

Tune in tonight at 7 for three Romantic masterpieces from the Des Moines Symphony. Benny Kim, a Quad Cities native who now has a major national career, solos in Bruch's Violin Concerto no. 1; and music director Joseph Giunta conducts Dukas's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (based on a poem by Goethe about the dangers of "a little learning") and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (a wild ride through love gone very, very wrong). The broadcast is part of IPR's Symphonies of Iowa series, produced and hosted by Jacqueline Halbloom.

Tune in Sunday at 2 pm to hear Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado makes his Chicago Symphony debut in music of Debussy, Ravel - and his countryman, Falla, performed with a flamenco singer from Spain. After Ravel's "Tombeau de Couperin" and "Pavane for a Dead Princess" and Debussy's ballet "The Toy Box," Heras-Casado and the CSO are joined by cantaora Marina Heredia for Falla's "Love, the Magician."

Join us at noon for Rossini's warmhearted retelling of the Cinderella story - a delightfully romantic comedy, brought to life by the dazzling vocal fireworks of an exciting young cast headed by Kate Lindsey.

Tune in Saturday at 7pm or Sunday at 6pm to hear guitarist Jorge Caballero in recital in Ames. He's the youngest musician (and only guitarist) to win the prestigious Naumburg International Competition; the New York Times called him a "superb young guitarist" with a rare combination of "a deft, powerful technique and a soft-spoken interpretive persona." His concert was sponsored by Ames Town & Gown and is broadcast as part of IPR's University Concert series.

Tune in tonight at 7 as Carter Brey - one of America's great cellists - scales the twin peaks of the cello repertory, the Dvorak Cello Concerto and the Bach Cello Suites. He performs the Dvorak with the New York Philharmonic, which he joined as principal cello in 1996 after a very successful solo career. Then, with a Baroque bow and gut strings, he plays the first two of Bach's solo cello suites.

Every evening from 5 to 7 this week on Performance Today, you can hear what's happening at this year's Aspen Music Festival. Featured artists include established greats like guitarist Sharon Isbin and violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg as well as admired newcomers like violinists Ray Chen and Stefan Jackiw. Tune in to sample the music they're making this week in the Rockies!

Tune in tonight at 7 to hear the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska perform Britten's Four Sea Pictures from Peter Grimes, Debussy's La Mer, and with Midori - one of the world's foremost violinists - the concerto by Vanska's great compatriot Sibelius. This SymphonyCast concert broadcast also includes Debussy's L'Isle joyeuse ("The Joyful Island") and Clare de Lune, and the last two movements of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

Join host Suzanne Bona every Sunday morning from 8 to noon for a feast of Baroque music. She'll begin this week with Bach (and later on play his Cantata no. 147), make varied stops in Italy, Austria, Spain, France, and England (with special attention to Thomas Tallis), and end with an hour of music by composers born or resident in Scotland. Suzanne, who's also an accomplished flute player, brings you the best in music and performances every week.

Tune in at noon for LA Opera's production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman." The legend of a ghostly ship condemned to wander the oceans forever is made vivid by Wagner's enthralling music. The result is a thrilling journey into a mythic world where a tormented spirit seeks true love as his redemption. James Conlon, a noted Wagnerian, conducts, and Icelandic baritone Tomas Tomasson sings the cursed mariner.

"These are pieces we really wanted to play." That's the unifying theme for the New York Philharmonic's CONTACT! new music series, given at the Metropolitan Museum, and you can hear the latest concert Thursday at 7 PM. The young American conductor Jayce Ogren leads the world premieres of two Philharmonic commissions, Andy Akiho’s Oscillate and Jude Vaclavik’s SHOCK WAVES, as well as the New York premiere of Andrew Norman’s Try. Then,music director Alan Gilbert leads the U.S.

Tune in Monday at 7PM to hear the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony in concert. Dror Biran - "one of Israel's most admired and gifted pianists" - performs Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with the orchestra. Before that, Jason Weinberger conducts the orchestra in Kodaly's Variations on a Hungarian Folksong, also called the Peacock Variations because its theme is the Hungarian folk song Fly, Peacock Fly.

Tune in today at noon to experience "the pleasures of four glorious voices singing Puccini’s heartbreaking, passionate melodies" (Opera News) in the LA Opera's Madame Butterfly. LA Opera music director James Conlon says, "Puccini’s fascination with 'Woman in Love' was the alpha and omega of his life’s work," and Butterfly is a particularly moving example. Cio-Cio San is sung by Ukranian soprano Oksana Dyko, Pinkerton by Brandon Jovanovich, and the result is (says Variety) "big and often vocally spectacular."

Join host Jacqueline Halbloom for August's "Iowa Arts Showcase." She speaks to Brooke Joyce, composer-in-residence at Luther College, about the new outdoor installation/symphony "Talking Trees," which he and Harvey Sollberger created from the sounds of birds chirping, frogs croaking, and the wind in the grass.

Tune in this morning at 10AM for the first in a series of broadcasts from the Spoleto Chamber Music Festival, one of America's leading music events. Our first episode features the St. Lawrence String Quartet (one of the world's finest) playing a pinnacle of the repertory - Haydn's op. 76 no 2 - as well as the noted American violinist Livia Sohn and Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan, who join the St. Lawrence in Chausson's Concerto for Violin, Piano, & String Quartet.

Tune in Saturday at 12 noon to hear the LA Opera's production of Franz Schrecker's "The Stigmatized" - an opera that caused a sensation at its 1918 premiere, but was later banned by the Third Reich and has rarely been revived. The music of Schrecker is a personal cause of LA Opera's conductor James Conlon; Saturday he gives us a rare chance to hear Schrecker's opera in performance.

Tune in Friday at 3 PM to hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Over the past two months Barney Sherman has cycled through notable recent recordings of the other eight, led by conductors Osmo Vanska, Jos van Immerseel, Andrew Manze, Joshua Bell, Paavo Jarvi, Ivan Fischer, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Whose Ninth will complete the cycle? Hint: it will be very different from the others. Join us at around 3 PM to hear it!

Tune in every Saturday from 8 am to 10 AM for Concierto, hosted by Frank Dominguez in both Spanish and English. Frank pays special attention to the contributions of Latin-American and Spanish composers as well as to performances of core repertory by great musicians of Hispanic origin, such as Claudio Arrau, Martha Argerich, and Gustavo Dudamel. This week's show includes music of Smetana and Schubert as well as Sojo, Blasco, Soler, and more, performed by a number of musicians including Daniel Barenboim and Mirian Conti.

Tune in tonight at 7 to hear just how amazingly Chinese superstar Lang Lang is playing these days - he's no longer a wunderkind, but a major artist. Also, the young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his Los Angeles Philharmonic perform two great symphonies. The broadcast begins with Lang performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 1; then Dudamel conducts Carl Nielsen's Fourth (the "Inextinguishable") and Robert Schumann's Third (the "Rhenish"). The broadcast comes to us via SymphonyCast.

Tune in tonight at 7 to hear the Orchestra Iowa Chamber Players perform Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, Beethoven's String Trio in C Minor, and a work by Cedar Rapids-born composer Michael Daugherty, Diamonds in the Rough. The performances, recorded at the inauguration of the Opus Concert Cafe in Cedar Rapids, feature Anita Tucker and Samuel Rudy on the violins, Lisa Ponton on viola, Cary Bostian on cello, Christine Bellomy on clarinet, and Tom Mackey on percussion. The concert is an IPR re-broadcast.

Plácido Domingo stars as a head of state desperate to protect his son - and himself - from ruthless enemies, as the LA Opera return to IPR with Verdi's "The Two Foscaris." The languid canals and boisterous festivals of 15th-century Venice conceal a deadly web of secret plots and vindictive rivalries. Caught up in forces beyond their control, the father and son struggle to reclaim honor in a city without mercy. The strong cast also includes Francesco Meli and Marina Poplavskaya.

Every four years the International Tchaikovsky Competition considers giving a pianist its First Prize. Some years it just doesn't. But in 2011 it gave Daniel Trifonov not only a First for piano, but also its overall Gold Medal. (He also took first at the Rubinstein Competition in Israel.) Hear him perform Prokofiev's marvelous Third Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic on Thurday night's concert broadcast. The orchestra also performs Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade under music director Alan Gilbert.

Tune in Wednesday at 7 PM to hear Dvorak's "New World" Symphony as conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, Sir Colin Davis, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and then Mariss Jansons with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Dvorak wrote the work in 1893 in the city once known as "New Amsterdam" - New York; the photograph shows him arriving there with his family.

Join us Tuesday at 7 PM as the Royal Concertgebouw, led by Pierre Boulez, performs Mahler's 7th Symphony in concert. The orchestra gave the work's second performance under Mahler's baton in 1909; Boulez is one of its noted interpreters. Mahler wrote the work, sometimes called "The Song of the Night," in his composition hut in the Austrian alps (pictured). Also on this SymphonyCast broadcast are Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra.